Delta said a flight from South Africa to the United States was temporarily diverted from Atlanta to Boston on Sunday for technical reasons. Flight 201, an Airbus A350, from Johannesburg was initially set to arrive at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday but was instead routed to Boston's Logan International Airport, Delta said. The diversion "has to do with technical specifications of our A350 aircraft and the payload of this particular flight," the company said in an email. "This can happen on ultra-long-haul flights when optimal operating conditions can’t be met," it said. The FAA said it would investigate the situation. The flight, which was initially scheduled to land in Atlanta at 8:15 EST, was rescheduled to land at in Boston at 9:27 a.m. before departing for Atlanta at 10:40 a.m., it said. The company did not cite the newly discovered Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has been detected in South Africa, as a reason for the temporary diversion. More than a dozen passengers on a flight from Johannesburg to Schiphol that landed Friday tested positive for the new variant, Dutch authorities said on Sunday.<br/>
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Sixty-one people from two flights from South Africa to the Netherlands have tested positive for the coronavirus, Dutch health officials said early Saturday. It was unclear as of late morning local time if the cases were linked to the newly discovered Omicron variant. The health officials tested 600 passengers who arrived on Friday morning at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Those who tested negative were allowed to leave the airport and quarantine at home, or to continue their journeys. When the Netherlands announced its travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa, the two KLM flights were already on their way to Schiphol. About half an hour before the first one landed, health officials were dispatched to the airport to conduct the tests there, said Harm Groustra, a spokesman for the GGD, the Dutch public health service. One of the passengers stuck on the tarmac was a New York Times reporter, Stephanie Nolan, who had been in South Africa covering the country’s response to the pandemic. “So I’m in my 3d hour on a tarmac at Schiphol,” she tweeted, after her flight from Johannesburg had landed. “While my flight from Jo’burg was somewhere over Chad, Europe went into variant panic; by the time we landed, we weren’t allowed off the plane.” Many passengers had ignored mask requirements, she said. Dutch health officials said in a statement that they understood frustration among passengers who had thought that they would be allowed to go home, but were instead “confronted with a situation like we’ve never had before in the Netherlands.” Story has more.<br/>
Embattled Garuda Indonesia plunged deeper in the red despite trimming costs, amid doubt over its ability to continue as a going concern. The flag carrier posted an operating loss of $1.35b for the nine months to 30 September, compared to the $1.05b loss during the same period in 2020. Group revenue fell 17.5% year on year to $939m, as several parts of the country was locked down in the middle of the year amid a spike in coronavirus infections. As for expenses, Garuda saw a 11.8% year-on-year decline to $1.98 billion. The airline managed to trim costs relating to flight operations, as well as general and administrative expenses, though maintenance and repair costs saw a slight uptick. Garuda also widened its nine-month net loss, at $1.7b against $1.1b in 2020. It ended the period with lower cash and cash equivalents compared to the start of the year, at around $40m compared to $199m. Garuda, which is undergoing a long-drawn restructuring process, reiterated warnings of the “major adverse impact” of the pandemic on its survivability. Current liabilities exceed assets by a staggering $4.7b, while its equity deficiency was around $2.8b. “The group has not been able to meet its financial obligations to the banks, significant vendors… and aircraft lessors. All of the above conditions indicate the existence of material uncertainties which may cast significant doubt about the group’s ability to continue as a going concern,” it adds. To this end, Garuda says it is continuing work to relieve “liquidity pressure”, including negotiating with its creditors and lessors about payment terms, as well as “positive rationalisation” of its staff numbers. “The cash flow projections cover a period of not less than twelve months from 30 September 2021 and have been extended for a period of not less than twelve months from the authorisation date of the consolidated financial statements,” adds Garuda. <br/>